"The family bed destroys married life" - Page 8

[crazylady]

i never thought of that! that excites me so much. my little boy is just not ready to leave our bed. he could deal with sleeping on the other side of the bed though. i just don't know how people do it with kids in their own beds. i know that early on neither one of us would have ever gotten any sleep if he was in his bed!

[abc123xyz]

This thread is so long but I wanted to chim in and say that my husband and I both have decided that the more the merrier in our bed. As long as they are sleeping in their own beds before college, we will be happy. That being said, we only have a 9 month old but he is more than welcome to stay as long as he'd like. Creativity is the best part of marriage and without it, isn't the marriage bed already ruined? I think of it this way...
they say:"babies in bed ruin your marriage"
I say: "Marriage in your bed ruins babies"

Relations can happen in any room of the house...why does it have to just be the bed? Although, it can happen there too! Having children is a season of life and when they are gone, you can't go back and wish you'd kept them closer longer. I am excited about having many many more children..maybe 15, to share bed with! We just decided we'd keep adding mattresses until our floor is full of them!

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by jkseawell

Relations can happen in any room of the house...why does it have to just be the bed?

It can be a little more complicated than that, depending on your family. DH and I have a teenager in the house, and we don't feel okay having sex anywhere but our room, unless he's out of the house. OTOH, our 3-year-old (tomorrow - wow) and 5-year-old are out of our room. They're okay with it, and they both know they can come in any time.

I hate this "kids in the bed ruins marriages" crap. I'm sure it can cause some extra stresses, but sex can happen in other places, and snuggling and such can happen even with a child in the bed...I love big family snuggles with dh on one side, me on the other, and the child(ren) in the middle.

[xojesse]

We've been co-sleeping for 2 months and our marriage couldn't be better. People always have little comments like "oh you better get rid of that bad habit while you can" but people don't parent their children as I do who have these sort of comments. DS sleeps in between DH and I and we both love the cuddles. I'm a happier mommy because I don't even have to move to nurse DS and our other DS sleeps on a toddler bed mattress on the floor. He's a little too wiggly to be in bed with us with a newborn.

With that said, our sex life is better than ever! Theirs a lot more creativity than before. By the end of this pregnancy I was annoyed with the bed and ready for some spice in our lives!

[RiverMamma]

I couldn't imagine not sleeping with my baby! My whole life I have always had to sleep with something in the crook of my arm, a stuffed animal, pillow, a corner of the blanket, my husband, etc... it only makes sence to me that a baby was designed to fill that space. Cuddling with her at night is one of the most rewarding aspects of motherhood (and of course adds to my sleep & her night time nursing!) As far as sex is concerned, the post partum period is difficult anyways, and it take getting to know eachother in a whole new way regardless, so you might as well make the best of it and realize, then release such limitations as the bed.

[Kiddoson]

Originally Posted by RiverMamma

I couldn't imagine not sleeping with my baby! My whole life I have always had to sleep with something in the crook of my arm, a stuffed animal, pillow, a corner of the blanket, my husband, etc... it only makes sence to me that a baby was designed to fill that space. Cuddling with her at night is one of the most rewarding aspects of motherhood (and of course adds to my sleep & her night time nursing!) As far as sex is concerned, the post partum period is difficult anyways, and it take getting to know eachother in a whole new way regardless, so you might as well make the best of it and realize, then release such limitations as the bed.

: 100%
I couldn't NOT sleep with my babes

[RiverMamma]

I think that the biggest challenge with post baby sex is simply hormonal changes. When a woman has a baby & is breastfeeding, her body is physiologicly aware that she has a baby, and so does not think it needs to make one, resulting in a lack of sex drive. Men on the other hand are hardwired to plant seeds, and don't experience a dramatic chemical/hormonal shift after the birth of their baby. It is these oposite physiological states that pose the real challenge. As far as I'm concerned, bedsharing with your baby really has very little to do with it, it is a simple challenge that can be easily worked arround, beeing far easier to deal with than having no sex drive & a frustrated husband with plenty of sex drive!

[Devaya]

Originally Posted by RiverMamma

I think that the biggest challenge with post baby sex is simply hormonal changes. When a woman has a baby & is breastfeeding, her body is physiologicly aware that she has a baby, and so does not think it needs to make one, resulting in a lack of sex drive. Men on the other hand are hardwired to plant seeds, and don't experience a dramatic chemical/hormonal shift after the birth of their baby. It is these oposite physiological states that pose the real challenge. As far as I'm concerned, bedsharing with your baby really has very little to do with it, it is a simple challenge that can be easily worked arround, beeing far easier to deal with than having no sex drive & a frustrated husband with plenty of sex drive!

Yes. i agree. i think co-sleeping isnt really the issue in the lack of sex problems in my relationship.

i also think it can go the other way round...while my sex drive isnt as high as it was before the birth, i am still up for it, and my partner couldn't be bothered to make an effort. He is so un-adaptable he cant get his head around any other possibility xcept DTD in our bed at night with no baby in the room...which makes me think he isn't really bothered about it. bit hurtful :

today i have moved into the other room, two mattresses on the floor, me and DS. DP refused to take our bed off its base to make it safer, and DS is getting more mobile by the day, so i feel he's left me with no choice. As far as I can see, if you really want to have sex with your partner, you will make the effort. He seems to use it as an excuse (the cosleeping) and is bitter about it...the baby's taken over our lives, etc.

i read some of the posts on here, where mom and dad still have a happy sex life and are happy cosleeping, and i wish it were me. oh well. Its hard to withstand the pressure from DP to sleep train DS and 'move him on' from cosleeping, but i'm confident i'm doing the right thing(most of the time!)

[KimPM]

to you Devaya. I hope that you and DH can work it out somehow.

[DavinaT]

"the baby's taken over our lives" - Yeees, this is exactly what I expected to happen when we had one - for the first couple of years anyway.
"sleep train" - you can sleep train someone? Gosh - I wish I'd known that when I suffered with insomnia. Perhaps if someone could tell everyone how to do that, then all insomnia sufferers could dispense with their sleep medication!
We had our lil'one beside us, in a bedside-bed - am way too wriggly to have someone that tiny right beside me and I know I wouldn't sleep - which is not good for anyone in our household and yes it means 'relations' didn't happen in the room - at night, but this as more to do with our hangups than our lil-ones presence. Besides we could always re-invet the lounge Maybe that might work for you Devaya as well.

[neostudded]

Amen!

great post by the way, and I agree.
My son has co-slept in mummies arms from birth and is now 12 months and still co-sleeping. I am proud of co-sleeping and I am happy we have done it this way. However I understand co-sleeping isnt for everyone and I am fine if people don't co-sleep as well.

[RiverMamma]

Originally Posted by Devaya

He is so un-adaptable he cant get his head around any other possibility xcept DTD in our bed at night with no baby in the room...

Yeah, my DH seems to be feeling a little inflexable these days too. The bed, 2am, not really wanting to try alternatives. I think though the issue for us right now is not the baby in the bed, but rather my exaustion keeping me from rousing. Which I'm sure would be worse if I were not sleeping with DD. I'm not too concerned though, he'll get over his limitations, I'll have energy again someday. It's just a little frustrating at the moment.

[Laura88]

I believe that co-sleeping, like all other decisions (parenting or marital)between husband & wife, need to be reached together. When one isn't comfortable w/the decision, it cretes a rift. This rift can damage even the strongest of marriages. It's not the act that hurts the relationship, but the lack of comprimise, the lack of working together as a team that destroys a marriage. CO-sleeping can create excitiment during this years as you try & find places to be together. In the end, it has to be what the two of you want and you must be willing to do the work. This is of course just my 2 cents.

[Devaya]

thanks for the sympathies,KimPM and RiverMamma.Actually things have improved, not in the sex department - there's been only one occasion in over 4 months, and it's not recently! - but in Dp's feelings about co sleeping. Well he still wants DS ultimately in the next room, but after a couple nights of me sleeping next door he said he was lonely and miserable and took down the bedbase, which he'd been refusing to do, so we are now quite happily on two mattresses on the floor in the main bedroom. It feels muchmore like we are a family now rather than 'me and ds' and Dp doing his own thing.

Laura88, I agree that cosleeping should ideally be both partners' wish. However, DP just isnt the one getting up all night, and my sanity is at stake should I have to do that 5-8 times a night which is how often DS wakes currently. It certainly has created a rift. But I feel more positive about it now. Only now,I think sex is even more off the agenda bc we've completely taken the cot down, and DS never goes in it anyway. Since DP doesn't seem to think of the lounge or any other room as a possibility, and i'm too shy to initiate that, I feel rather stuck and frustrated.

[RiverMamma]

something that has been working for us latley, (now that DD can sit up & is quite content to sit & play alone for short periods of time,) is when I get up in the morning, I take DD potty, change & nurse her, then set her up in the living room to play for a little while & I can crawl back in bed w/ DH & have some intamacy, wether it is just cuddling & rubbies, or some good sex. This seems to be working pretty well, at least on mornings that we both don't have to rush off somewhere!

[Mamatolea]

We co-sleep with a toddler and a newborn. I have to admit, it is tough sometimes. The baby wakes every 4 hours and Lea is a mover-all night! And she is one of those people that wakes if we get out of bed.

We try to put her to bed and then we get up to spend some time together, but she tends to wake up..we have to let her cry for a few minutes to fall back asleep. It usually only lasts 2 or 3 minutes, but it kills me to have to do that...

Anyways, we haven't had sex in bed for a while, but we have sex in lots of other places. Of course, it IS nice to have sex in bed..lol..but it isn't necessary!

All of our mainstream friends and family think we are crazy, but I have massive insomnia and had night terrors and I wish I could have slept with my parents but they were very against it and still are. And it bugs me because now they are using that as a reason for not watching the kids, because they "can't sleep in a crib", therefore they can't take them overnight-ever. Nice, huh?

[CarsonBookworm]

Our DD is 11.5 months.

I don't think that Co-sleeping has put a damper on our sex life....quite the contrary!
We just find times when she's sleeping and then sneak out the room and find someplace else to DTD. Its fun, if I do say so myself to find new places to DTD rather than in bed, or on the floor....

[mamamelia]

I think that crib sleeping goes hand-in-hand with formula feeding.

why didn't anyone tell me this??? they should write that out on the formula can! i could of avoided the neck and back aches i've been having from dd not letting me move at night.

seriously

Formula-fed babies tend to sleep longer and can be fed by either mom or dad (my brother's baby book states that he STTN at TWO months!). There is no "need" for a formula-fed baby to sleep next to Mom, so co-sleeping happens less often.

oh yes of course! because babies that are bottle fed are also somehow immune to wanting the warmth and cuddles from thier mamas at night. wanting to feel another person's warmth and presence aren't needs, only breastfeeding can be counted as a real need.

you need to get your head of your brother's baby book... because GUESS WHAT? wait for it... my 21mo bottle fed daughter STILL wakes up 3-4 times a night for a bottle. my 4yo still breastfed daughter woke up less than that at the same age. but somehow, according to you, my bottle fed babe should be STTN by now?

maybe you need to come and have a talk with her and convince her that since she has her milk from a silicon teat instead of a human one, she should also be hugging her teddy bear instead of her mama? oh, and don't she dare wake up mama or daddy because there is no real need for it.

hideous. some people really need to step out of thier box.

happily breastfeeding, bottle feeding and co-sleeping mama to 2 beautiful girls.

[forrestguy]

Me too, I love feeling my husband close to me in the middle of the night and rolling over for a sleepy love making session. We moved our tiny crappy couch next to our bed and put a baby mattress on it. Our baby rarely sleeps all the way on our makeshift couch baby bed, but at least he can be on the edge of our bed without me worrying about him rolling off. This gives us enough room to quietly and gently be intimate in the middle of the night.